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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27579040">Blue Butterflies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_Eli/pseuds/I_am_Eli'>I_am_Eli</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hamilton - Miranda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Arguments, Bittersweet Ending, CPS, Child Death, Child Neglect, Death, Death of an Original Character, Depression, Divorce, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Panic Attacks, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:49:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,581</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27579040</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_Eli/pseuds/I_am_Eli</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After their ninth pregnancy results in a stillborn,  Eliza and Alexander's relationship is falling apart at the seams, and their children are paying for it. Will they ever be able to let their daughter go, or will they always be trapped in their grief?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton/Maria Reynolds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Blue Butterflies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It had been a long time coming, Alex realized. Their imminent split had hung over all of them, a dark cloud haunting their lives, darkening the gazes of their children and slowly fraying Alexander and Eliza’s, admittedly rushed, relationship.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alex almost couldn’t believe it. Everything had been so </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span> in the beginning. They had been married for seventeen years, had eight beautiful children, and another little one on the way. Everything had been so perfect… </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They had good jobs, enough money to support their children as well as to pay for simple pleasures, and, for the most part, there were no arguments. How everything could change so </span>
  <em>
    <span>quickly</span>
  </em>
  <span> made Alex’s head spin…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had started, he realized, with little Rachel. Little Rachel who they had known from the beginning to be a risky pregnancy. Little Rachel who hadn’t lived long enough to draw her first breath.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She’d been still born. Eliza had gone to the doctor because Rachel hadn’t been kicking in a while. By the time Alexander had finally gotten to the hospital after hours of heavy traffic, they’d already done a C-section and little Rachel was in her exhausted mother’s arms, too still and too stiff for any infant. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Both parents blamed themselves. Both parents told the other that their self-blame was bullshit, that they couldn’t have possibly done anything that would’ve aided in their child’s unfortunate fate, but…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rachel had been cremated. Her ashes had been kept in a small, simple silver urn with the words ‘Rachel Hamilton’ engraved at the base. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Eliza was finally ready to leave the hospital, the first thing she did upon her return home was put the urn in what was supposed to be Rachel’s nursery, on a little shelf, right next to a couple soft, plush toys. Then she closed and locked the room, effectively sealing off that part of their lives, and no one talked about the room for the next two few years. Eliza paid for someone to tear down the door and replace it with drywall a month later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’d been complete messes after that. Alex couldn’t look at the blank expanse of wall without crying, taking to staying out at bars every night after work. Eliza became depressed, never venturing far from her bed. Angie, their thirteen year old daughter, had panic attacks every day, constantly worried about her parents. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Philip took to looking after the children when their parents couldn’t. He was there, every day after the children came home from school and the babies returned from day care. He cooked, and cleaned, and looked after the children to the best of his ability.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After three months of looking after the children, when little PJ’s first word was to call Philip ‘papa’, Philip locked himself in his room and cried so hard he passed out. He couldn’t look either of his parents in the eye after that, the few times he even saw them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next big thing that led to the split was Maria Reynolds, a conquest of Alexander’s that he had pursued in a drunken haze. She had been a pretty little young thing, fresh out of college with a face that had yet to be tainted by the passage of time. She’d left bright red lipstick marks all over his neck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alexander, being a successful and well-known man, had been tackled by the press after he’d left the young lady’s apartment, feet stumbling and brain still foggy with liquor. When the press asked him where he’d been for the past few months, he described what he had done in vivid detail, swaying back and forth, his words slurring together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Angelica had slapped him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Washington had fired him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Whenever he encountered Lafayette, John or Hercules, they wouldn’t talk to them, instead saying all they needed with icy glares.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Angie had a panic attack when she watched the news story in front of all her siblings. Philip thought she was dying, not knowing much about panic attacks as he was only fourteen, and had called an ambulance. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>CPS took all eight of the children, and they went to live with their Auntie Angelica and Aunt Peggy in their home upstate. Alexander didn’t fight for custody. Everyone was sure that Eliza was too far gone to notice her children’s absence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eliza finally got treatment a full year and a half after Rachel’s birth, and a few months after CPS took the children. She went to a specialist, got medicated, and, slowly but surely, got better. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She, too, slapped Alexander Hamilton in the face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Angelica didn’t let Eliza near the children until she was sure Eliza would be okay to look after them again. Which was half a year later. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eliza said her first words to her children in two years that day, when Philip was sixteen and Eliza and Alex had been married for seventeen years, despite not interacting much for two of those seventeen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alexander tried to clean himself up. Groveled at Eliza’s feet for her to forgive him for his actions, for the liquor, for Maria…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And she did. And Alexander was clean for two months, despite the screaming of a dead baby in his ears, a sound that he wanted nothing more than to muffle with alcohol. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eliza filed for divorce on their eighteenth anniversary, when Alex came home drunk, a random girl clinging to his arm.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The papers had been signed without complaint. Eliza didn’t take any of Alex’s money, and she agreed to joint custody of the children, assuming he got his act together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alex had several cardboard boxes, and he was at what was once their home, gathering his things - books, knickknacks, old pictures, clothes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then he saw the blank expanse of wall. No one had even bothered hanging up a picture over what was once the door to Rachel’s nursery. The only thing on the wall was an iron cross, nailed to the plaster. They weren’t even religious…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alex remembered the ashes, locked away in the old room. He heard the sound of a baby’s gurgling, ringing in his ears.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He took the cross down from the wall, and slammed it into the plaster. A large crack appeared where he had hit the wall. Eliza ran up the stairs just as he was rearing back to hit it again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What the Hell are you doing?!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” she shouted, grabbing the hand that held the iron cross and trying to loosen his grip on it. He pushed her off, slamming it into the wall again. “Stop! Alex, stop! What are you doing? Stop!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Both parents were crying. Alexander’s knuckles were white, his grip on the cross was so tight. He hit the wall again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alex, stop, please! Just stop!” Eliza was sobbing. Alex’s shoulders were shaking. The arm that was holding the cross fell, and he leaned his head against the plaster, breath hitching. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She...” Alex swallowed. “She was so little, ‘Liza, y’know?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eliza said nothing, just cried harder, hands covering her face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And we never got to meet her, and so I don’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span> her death bothered me so much, but it did and...” His head thumped against the wall. “We just left her in there! We just- we just abandoned her, in that dusty old room, and tried to </span>
  <em>
    <span>forget</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but...” He scrubbed at his eyes. “Eliza, I don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to just forget about her, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t, </span>
  </em>
  <span>I couldn’t then, I can’t now...” Eliza wailed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We needed to move on!” she shouted. “We </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed</span>
  </em>
  <span> to forget! </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> needed to forget! Every time I looked at that room… God, Alex, it was like being punched in the gut! We couldn’t just… </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>couldn’t just...”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But we didn’t forget!” Alex exclaimed. “You were barely functioning, Eliza! A-and I can’t go an hour without- without hearing her cry and-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We needed. To let. Her go.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re right,” Alex said. He pointed at the wall, right at the hole he made. “But not like this! Not like this.” His arm fell. “We could - we could spread her ashes. Or something like that. But we can’t just lock her away. It’s not fair to her, and it’s not fair to us...”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eliza stared at him, eyes wide and face still. She stood, grabbed the cross from where Alex had dropped it, and slammed it into the wall. Again and again and again. Then Alex kicked out the rest of the dry wall and, for the first time in almost three years…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The walls had been painted a soft white. Shelves of soft toys were nailed to the wall. A rocking chair rested in the corner. There was a crib in the corner, painted white as well, the blankets in it a soft pink.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They walked toward the shelf, where the urn sat. It was covered in a thin layer of dust. Alex’s hands shook as he reached up to grab it off its place on the shelf. As he cradled the urn to his chest, he was sure he would start crying again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sound of a baby cooing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They walked out of the room, ignoring the crumbled plaster they had left on the floor. Neither noticed the way the rocking chair rocked slightly, back and forth.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>They spread the ashes in the garden. Right next to a row of yellow rose bushes. A light breeze picked up the ashes, and carried them away with the wind. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Twin blue butterflies landed on each of their shoulders, and the parents felt fifty pounds lighter.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>made from a prompt on Tumblr. Hope y'all enjoy. I love writing angst. Send prompts if you want.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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